pknomad

Genuine question for the folks over at Amazon: What is the value of working at Amazon (or even just AWS) these days? Every now and then I get a ring from a recruiter gauging my interest and sometimes I get the itch to just to go through the process so that I can have a FAANG in my resume.

I've heard from others that Amazon could be an amazing place to work, citing fantastic colleagues and work opportunities. But then again, Amazon doesn't claim monopoly on those and one has to assume the risk of working for a place that churns people out and has upper-level management that are hostile to IC's needs/wants.

Perhaps a better question is - if one can get an offer at other FAANGs and the equivalents... is there a reason to choose Amazon over others?

It looks like he's wearing the same visor as robocop:

https://deathbattle.fandom.com/wiki/RoboCop

It's unfortunate but not surprising given that the job market is awful and worthwhile recruiting tends to be localized to top tier unis...

> that's because selective universities don't _want_ to give degrees through MOOCs at a lower cost

That's one big reason for sure.

The other, I suspect (and I'm sure there are more), is that it's also rather difficult to provide the same level of quality of courses to the masses than say select few undergrads.

Some of the best courses I took in my uni (T20) were the upper level electives where it was taught by the professors who cared about the topic, had interesting teaching materials/presentation, readily available support resources (TA's/office hours/department support), and so on.

Also keep in mind - Georgia Tech's program is a master's degree - and these programs don't affront the same level of prestige and opportunities in the same way the other programs do (BS/BA, PhD, MBA, MD, JD).

Don't give them ideas lmao.

How did you know?

One of my VP's (one of the coolest dude I know) would often say "slow is smooth and smooth is fast".

You're absolutely right that fear interferes with one's ability to reason rationally but I'd also add that fear is highly infectious. If ICs sees their leaders/managers/colleagues panicking, they will often panic too. Thankfully my VP was always level-headed and prioritized clarity over action.

> But the people who keep the lights on at most companies especially big ones like Google are a sea of average, steady, stable employees who do their tasks and not much else, go home at 5 or maybe earlier and have no interest in burning themselves out so that the CEO can have a second private jet.

This was my moment of clarity during the pandemic. I was working insane hours and it just occurred to me then - why am I working so hard and sacrificing my health? So what if I don't work another 10 hours on top of the 90 I was already working? Is my CEO working this hard (numbers-wise)?

For me - I knew then I was content with being a C-level (probably even a D) player.

I'm not a googler, but my take would be that Google was a smaller ship with technical founders at the helm who understood the problem and acted accordingly with first mover benefits. I remember when I started to use search engines in grade school (AskJeeves, AltaVista, etc) and Google just had the most relevant answers.

Google is now a behemoth that seems to just chuck money and promo packets at problems (Stadia, Google Cloud, Nest, etc) with no clear vision for them. It kind of reminds me of the examples in this blog: https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611

There's also self selection going on - people joining startups generally have more vested interest in solving a problem and will work longer and harder, too. So I think there's some kernel of truth what Eric Schmidt was saying. How much enthusiasm can a person have about increasing the bottom line of a mega public company?

I'm a bit confused on the use of word non-invasive in this context.

I was under the impression that non-invasive meant no cutting of tissue. Even if ultrasound separated the cancerous tissue from the healthy tissue - how would the surgeons get it out of the head without cutting into the skull? I also thought some surgeons used diluted hydrogen peroxide irrigation for removing potential neoplastic cancerous tissues post excision?

I didn't realize how aggressive GBM could be until watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSLPq010Q-o

That much growth in 4 months is eye watering.

> The better we get at treating these tumors and extending patients' lives, the more important it will be to avoid radiation as long as possible to ensure that extra quantity of life also has quality.

This is a good point.

It's also unfair to lump all 18-22 year olds from dysfunction background as potential sexual predators.

IANAL; I believe you are referring to the second prong of the qualified immunity (QI): "right infringed has to be "clearly established" at the time of the official's conduct."

We should maintain QI but this second test needs an update.

Using your analogy - if MS/CS are the arsonists, then Delta are the landlords unsafely storing ammonium nitrate in their own warehouse.

Their lack of response to MS/CS isn't coming from a place of reducing potential additional problems but trying to shield their own inadequacies while a potential lawsuit is brewing in the background.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-blames-delta-it...

Same reason why an aircraft manufacturing company would get involved in a NTSB investigation when there is an airplane crash. Just because they messed up one or more things (i.e. MCAS on MAX) doesn't mean they can't provide expertise or additional resources to at least help with the problem.

Your take also casually disregards the fact that Delta took an extraordinary time to recover from the problem when the other companies recovered (albeit slowly). This is the point that I'm getting at. It isn't that CS and MS aren't culpable for the outage; it's that DAL also contributed to the problem by not adequately investing in its infra.

Yes and no.

Crowdstrike was the executioner of this epic fail for sure but their archaic infra practices made it even worse. Both Crowdstrike and Microsoft CEOs reached out only to be rebuffed by Delta's own. If I was the CEO - I'd accept any help I can get while you have the benefit of the public opinion.

/tin-foil-hat-on Flat out refusal for help makes me think there are other skeletons in the closet that makes Delta look even worse /tin-foil-hat-off

May I ask which vendor you use for pharmaceutical needs now? I used to use Amazon Pharmacy but then have since gone back to CVS.

This is a good rule of thumb. I'd even go further and say use Amazon as a last resort merchandiser maybe except for few areas like comixology. I remember seeing threads here about how Amazon mixes SKUs of different origins so it feels like they're complicit with the fraudulent sellers.

I guess if those tech companies are VC-funded... isn't the whole point to IPO?

I'm saying that's neither right nor wrong but there are examples of the good on both sides; Jetbrains and Crowdstrike seems to be doing fairly well despite staying private and going IPO, respectively.

> European colonisation began due to rise of technology

Technology enabled colonization, but that's not what drove colonization.

> just because a country is at the top now does not guarantee that it will be at the top forever. A quick look at history will tell you that

No one is making this claim. Every empire rises and sets.

Your argument - "[t]his is a deeply imperialist, Euro/Anglo-centric viewpoint" - is deeply lazy. You should be easily rebut the their points if the article is bad.

If anything - your arguments actually reinforce the article's point of view because resource heavy areas get pilfered by others and the victors often place or leave extractive institutions in these areas, thus leading to poor economies. Countries that have winters have incentives to colonize resource-rich areas for the reasons you cite. If these resource rich areas have the advantage of having resources... then why is it that these areas are often colonized instead of the other way around?

Also - the article presents these arguments because they're simply sourcing arguments from Daron Acemoglu, who is a labor economist from MIT. Therefore, it will be written from a developmental economics point of view, not from political economics.

>In a just world, Spain, Portugal, the UK, France, the US, and the Benelux countries would collectively be forced to pay reparations amounting to about five to ten trillion euros/pounds/dollars per annum to their ex-colonies, slaves, and exploited peoples until the latter returned to a semblance of development with everyone above the poverty line, and with reliable electricity, sanitation, food supply, housing, and Internet access.

You're not wrong for wanting reparations but this argument has nothing to do with the article at hand.

You had me at first half lol.

Non-causal link but 8x times the risk off of one study at MGH seems to be the eli5.

I made my comment about dependency on these class of drugs a while ago on hacker news but I’d love to see a regimented system that helps patients eventually get off of these drugs or otherwise it seems like we’re trading one con for another (albeit much lesser).

Seconded on gov.

I work for an R&D company associated with DoE. I don't work more than 40 hours a week and occasionally as few as 20 hours a week. Every now and then I get an itch to apply to a startup and then I remember those 80-hour weeks I used to work at startups.

I think startups are just bad value proposition for most employees. You might work similar hours in IB, but at least you get comped in cash...

Inefficacy against HSV is interesting. I had no idea. Why is it ineffective?

> The manager, however, fails to include me or the team, and this is reflected in declining team satisfaction ratings.

To me it feels like there needs to be more information before we can come to a judgement (excluding bias aside). I don't feel like "failing to include" people is necessarily an indication that a manager is bad... rather it feels like his communication style clashes with your preference. There are plenty of places where information is shared on the "need-to-know" basis. Is the manager not including your team on things that your team should be knowing?

Was the manager also given a fair chance to receive the feedback and take action on it?

that'll do it. Thanks william

Why do you find it troubling? The article doesn't claim that poor parenting and divorce doesn't have negative effects on a child. It claims that social media, amplified by technology, has had negative effects on his/her child. Technology is a double edged sword and good parenting is supposed to shield predatory action by social media companies.

I think this quotation captures the sentiment the best: "She assessed her worth within a system where she was simultaneously attention-addicted and attention-starved. She’d internalized an algorithm where provocative content wins"

You bring up a good point about the US Supreme Court. My limited understanding as a US citizen is that they are there to interpret laws, not make them. I don't know how well that works in practice so I'm willing to be swayed on that stance if someone with more legal experience can present compelling arguments.

Chief Justice Roberts brought this issue up on his dissent on the Obergefell vs Hodges case few years ago. The constitution never addresses the topic on the legality of gay marriage and thus the court should not be the vehicle for delivering that decision; that responsibility falls squarely upon the legislative branch.

I'm not sure if they're increasingly tiny minority but they are becoming more vocal.